Nox (PC) – Sorcerous Speculation
Ah, Hiya. After the usual interruptions: classes, crippling self-loathing, a subscription to Netflix and a renewed interest in recreational reading, I’m gonna give this a rusty shot (sounds dirty). Taking English classes while writing a fair deal makes me feel as if every word or punctuation mark is incorrect and it probably is…I’ll get to it sometime. Bare with me? The last game I played was an EA game released 12 years ago; well before EA gained it’s reputations for loading their games with shitty DLC, paying-off critics and ending award-winning trilogies with upsetting results. EA is known by their slogan to “Challenge Everything,” but lately they just seem to make it a challenge to enjoy their products. I’m not really stating an unmovable, fundamental belief. I could have my mind changed but that’s what it seems like to me. Actually, I should say this is a Westwood Studios game. Westwood, responsible for the Command and Conquer series and the Blade Runner game, is one of many studios like Bullfrog and Pandemic that were acquired by EA and promptly taken out back and shot. Anyhow, this game’s called Nox.
Plot: I don’t much understand the physics behind the plot device used to kick off this story. A teenage “everyman”, you know the archetype youngster people envisioned in the 90′s; wears flannel and Converse shoes, bed head, likes pizza and skateboarding. Jack is hanging out with his girlfriend and watching TV. While shes out of the room, Jack is magically sucked into his TV and appears on a flying ship in another world called, Nox. Once there, he is forced to defeat an evil, big-breasted sorceress/necromancer named Hecubah. If he succeeds he will be returned to his world. How Jack instantly turns from normal guy to medieval warrior, I do not know but it happens and from that point on it becomes pretty textbook fantasy. Really, the whole “getting sucked into the TV” is a very dated idea and reminds me of old DOS adventure games or Heavy Metal comics. If it actually mattered how he ended up in Nox, I would have opted for something a little more modern but that’s just me.
Gameplay: Truly the most simple comparison I can make is Diablo. Nox is aesthetically clearly inspired by the Diablo series and that is by no means an insult. From the overhead view to the character models and menu screens, this game goes out of it’s way to appeal to Diablo fans. The isometric perspective and inventory hot-keys are very familiar and just instill this sense of, “home” with me. Maybe it provided me with a great deal of nostalgia but aside from making me want to revisit Diablo, it made me feel right at home and welcome. In this same sense it is not a hard game to comprehend or jump into, just click on enemies to slash away and keep your fingers primed to use health or mana potions. There are a decent amount of weapons and armor but not enough to constantly be swapping them out or buying new equipment like Diablo. Also, halfway through the game you get a weapon that makes pretty much anything else obsolete. What it brings that the first two Diablo games didn’t are environmental dangers like traps and gauntlets. More importantly though is the fact that your class choice will affect the way the story is presented. While Nox does have only three classes(Warrior, Conjurer and Wizard) opposed to Diablo II‘s five and eventually seven classes, your choice actually affects your experience of the plot. There was also the option to play online or through LAN but I doubt it’s been anything but a ghost town for a long time.
Audio/Visual: As I said earlier, it looks exactly like Diablo. One way it does surpass that however is it’s use of shadow. When you’re indoors, your field of view is limited to the specific room you are in. So, whenever you enter a room, your view of the hallway leading to the room will turn black. When you enter a room however you cast the light of the room your exiting into the room your entering which casts shadows beautifully for its time. Like Diablo, the style is really just charming and enjoyable on every level to me. Voice work is rather good in a slightly tongue-in-cheek sort of way. Jack, in a confusing choice is voiced by actor Sean William Scott of American Pie and Dude, Where’s My Car fame. All the other voice actors have significant experience in acting and voice acting.
Pros: Fun Diabloesque game-play, replay value, different experiences with different classes, good VO
Cons: Somewhat short, not a lot of plot, not a lot of variation, frustrating chapters.
Conclusion: What I immediately expected to be a dull affair turned out to be a very entertaining experience and I wouldn’t mind playing through again with a different class.
Dear Esther (PC) – Pretentious Awe
I just finished my power-walk through Indie developer, Thechineseroom’s Dear Esther. The best way I can describe my feelings right now is as though I was just teased with a potentially much greater game than I finished. I feel like I just finished a demo or a beta, but a breath-taking one at that. For those not familiar with the games upbringing, a little history; Dear Esther was actually released four years ago as a free downloadable mod for Half Life 2. In 2009 a former member of the popular game studio, Dice, helped the creators essentially remake the game for commercial sale on Steam. This is one of those stories that warms your heart. An indie developer with an original, intriguing concept reaching some impressive success. The game sold thousands of copies in the first few hours it was for sale. I know when I first saw the screenshots I was consumed with a resounding. “What the fuck is this? It’s gorgeous.” So, I read the description and all the praise it had already received and still thought. “But….what is it? What am I going to be doing? Is this like…puzzles? or….what’s this going to be like?” I’m still not entirely sure, but it was quite moving while it lasted. It’s less of a game and more of an experiment in atmosphere.
Plot: Dear Esther‘s story is a hard thing to explain because it was sort of meant for you to draw your own conclusion. As you walk you are given snippets of a story that change throughout every play through but you can vaguely piece together a basic story. You know you’re on an island and being read letters addressed to a mysterious person named Esther, what your relation to this person is I don’t know, but again it doesn’t seem like an important part of the story. Whomever she is, she was important to the narrator and it seems she was involved in a car accident. The object of the game I suppose is to reach a radio tower at the end of the game. You are led by cryptic messages painted on rocks and spooky radio static. I can’t really tell you if this game is meant to be unsettling but there are some moments where I expected something to jump out at me. It’s very incoherent and pretentious but I very much enjoyed experiencing it. However, like most aspects of the game, I felt it just needed a little bit more structure or meaning. I know I don’t require spoon-feeding or constant action and FPS violence, but I most certainly cannot say the same for the average gamer.
- Needs to be painted and hung up in a hotel room.
Gameplay: I don’t really know what to say here because there isn’t really any gameplay to speak of. So, I don’t really know if you could call this a game. Maybe some sort of interactive…painting? I don’t know. It’s too experimental and ambient to have any gameplay. You are really just walking through different areas and listening to pieces of the story as you go. I guess the real game goes on in your head while you’re trying to figure out what everything means. As enjoyable as this was I was a little surprised at how short the game could potentially be. I got the impression you were meant to explore every inch of the island and soak up all the beauty but I just wanted to keep moving forward to learn more of the story and see new parts of the island. I finished it in about an hour or so and was so confused at the end because I thought there was some sort of error or bug but I had just finished the game. I guess all you could say about the gameplay is that you control with WASD, you can zoom with the left mouse button…and …uh…you can chapter select.
- I stared at this screen for a good 5 minutes before pressing on.
Audio/Video: This is the bread and butter of this game. This is what we are here for. Just soak it all in and immerse yourself in the breathtaking scenery and gorgeous soundtrack. Foliage sways and flecks of dust and leaves are pushed around by the wind. Water reflects on to cave walls and drips from stalactites into ancient pools of crystal clear water. In short, it is truly amazing what the creators have done with an engine almost a decade old. Just about everything in this game is aesthetically pleasing and created atmosphere I had yet to experience in a game. The soundtrack is haunting and seemed to swell the moment I came across an impressive piece of scenery.
- *speechless*
Conclusion: Dear Esther feels like the beginning of an interesting experiment in gaming. Given how short the game is I am a bit weary about that $10 price tag but you simply must experience it if you are an indie enthusiast or interested in more unconventional stuff.
Pros: Visually and Aurally stunning. Interesting story-telling method. Original.
Cons: Too short, feels incomplete, just needs to be…more.
Area 51 (PC/PS2/Xbox) – Review
I finished this game in a day or so, but have been putting off writing about it because it’s insanely hard to care about saying anything related to this game. I did not like it. I would ask myself, “why am I playing a game that came out seven years ago to mediocre reviews?” I think the only logical response is because there are dozens of websites and blogs that review games and probably a lot better. So, I figured I’d review games that either didn’t get a whole lot of attention or haven’t in a long time with a super opinionated and biased commentary. So, I am a conspiracy nut and figured, what better game to play than one called Area 51? Turns out there are a multitude of answers for that.
Plo
t: Completely off topic, but I’m proud of the fact that I made that image to the left. I couldn’t find a three-dimension image of the box art so I made one. I mean, it wasn’t hard but I think it looks nice. Anyway, this game boasts a mediocre understanding of Area 51 mythology but spends most of the time making it as absurd as possible. Grays, government conspiracy, alien autopsies, teleportation all make an appearance, but instead of cleverly playing off what we know and fear it takes these ideas to their cartoon conclusion. The plot really isn’t prevalent but it does take a while to explain so I’ll try to sum it up as efficiently as possible. A group of alien grays (that the government is keeping captive after they crash-landed in 1947) contact the Illuminati and make a deal with them in which they get to study the effects of a deadly virus on human subjects. The Illuminati thinks this virus could also help their plan to control the planet. The scientist that work with the grays release the virus in Area 51 in an attempt to prevent that the Illuminati’s domination plans. That’s about the most story you’re going to get because the rest of the game is all blasting alien zombies as Ethan Cole, the monotone HAZMAT Mission Specialist. Ethan Cole follows orders like a robot lap-dog while generic teammate after generic teammate meet their grim fate at the hands of the alien scourge.
- Given us a taste of our own medicine.
Gameplay: One of the most confusing things about this game is that it was released in 2005. That’s 4 years after Halo: Combat Evolved. Why is it then that Halo exceeds this game in every facet? You’d think that at the very least, the passing of time would have some sort of advantage in the graphical or game-play areas. Yet, everything in this game feels dated and ultimately meaningless. It was an odd experience to get used to because I am slightly accustomed to modern shooters, I felt like I had taken things like cover, blind-fire and iron sights for granted. Try taking cover in this game. You’d think crouching behind a piece of fallen debris would provide means for a grand shoot out, but nay! Enemies will just be confused as to why you’re not visible anymore and walk right behind your cover and shoot you. You get a pretty standard weapon loudout; a pistol, a sub-machine gun, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, an explosive weapon. The only wild card is an alien weapon that works in much the same way the Needler in Halo works. You can also duel-wield the machine gun or the shotgun. I did find the idea of having a shotgun in both hands pretty amusing. That was most certainly my favorite thing. So satisfying. Aside from gun-play you also have the ability to turn into one of the infected for a limited amount of time. In this mode you can see enemies that are using cloaking technology, use powerful melee attacks and drain life as well. Ethan is also eqquipped with a scanning device on his arm, which is useful for about two or three moments in the storyline but there are several optional moments where you can scan documents that elaborate on the wacky mythology of the game. Really though, this is nothing that hasn’t been done better before and after.
Okay, I admit this was pretty clever.
Audio/Visual: The hidden force that was providing this game with the hype it received was probably the famous voice actors. Ethan Cole is voiced by a very monotone and disinterested David Duchovney. I’m a fan of David but I can never tell if he is just good at sounding like himself or bad at it. In-game, Duchovney has a total of one line, the rest are narrations in between levels. I’m ammusing he was chose because of his role in X-Files and not because he is the first person you think of when you think of a bad-ass Hazmat soldier. Major Bridges, the archetype seasoned authority that barks your orders is voiced by Powers Booth. There are also a couple of lines given to Brian Warner (better known as Marilyn Manson) who plays an alien gray that speaks by taking control of dead bodies. Warner’s raspy voice is a good fit but he hardly has much opportunity to show any emotion other than being spooky and cryptic. These names would be more impressive if they all didn’t clearly come in for an hour or two, say some lines in which the didn’t know the context and get a paycheck. Visually this game looks like a decent example of PS2 graphics. I don’t think it was very impressive at the time though. I’m not trying to be a dick, I just really can’t find anything nice to say about this game. I’ve spent over a week opening and closing this review because I was trying to think of some possible way to give a balanced review but I did not like this game one fucking bit.
- The best part was that final sprint to the exit before the credits.
Conclusion: Look, I get it. Why get so worked up? It’s an old game. It’s been reviewed before and it’s time has passed. But, I think it necessary to remind those who have yet to experience the game that they are fortunate. You aren’t missing out on anything save for some frustration and disappointment.
Pros: Double shotguns.
Cons: EVERYTHING ELSE.
Jurassic Park: The Game (The Review)
This is by no means the first Jurassic Park video game, but it is the only one with the balls to claim the title, Jurassic Park: The Game. As in thee game. As in “this is the only one that matters so fuck the others.” This is definitely the more ambitious title of the litter but then again my knowledge of Jurassic Park video games ends with the 1993 Sega Genesis title. Perhaps I will look into the others because I do love me some dinosaurs.
Plot: Really, this is what you should be here for. If you’re expecting action-packed dinosaur shoot-outs or multi-player dino-combat, look elsewhere (your imagination?). There is none of that to be found here. What you will find is a Hollywood movie script that you occasionally gain control of. Seriously, this was written like a movie and that’s because it plays like one. The story picks up what seems like a few moments before the first film ends but concerns a different group of characters. The only character that makes an appearance in the movie as well as the game is the somewhat main character, Dr. Gerry Harding. He is seen caring for the sick triceratops in the beginning of the film. You’ll notice he is also mustachioed and well into his 40′s unlike the young and chiseled Gerry we see in the game. Gerry is the parks only veterinarian and he is taking care of his daughter, Jess for the day (he is divorced from his wife but we don’t learn much about that). Gerry tries to make up for the time he’s spent away from Jess, but Jess has grown to be quite the little hussy, getting in trouble with the law and smoking. At the same time we meet the characters who were originally supposed to meet up with Dennis Nedry (the portly computer nerd played by Officer Don/Numan) to collect the stolen dinosaur embryos hidden within a shaving cream can. Miles Chadwick and Nima Cruz arrive by boat to retrieve the embryos but wander into the park when Nedry doesn’t show (He’s dead in his Jeep somewhere in the jungle).
These characters get caught in the chaos of Jurassic Park’s security measures being shut down until they meet up with a couple new characters that arrive by helicopter. Billy Yoder, Oscar Morales and Danny “D-Caf” Cafarro are part of a mercenary team hired to get the remaining survivors off the island, but their intentions are always shadowy. The writing can be really clever at points and cheesy at others. This is mostly due to the fact that a different team of writers were responsible for each of the four chapters of the game. It may dwindle a little as it approaches the end and the plot twists get a little disappointing but I was never bored or uninterested in how things where going to work out.
- Tonight…You.
Gameplay: While TellTale Games based the engine off of Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain, it is far less intricate. In Heavy Rain you made decisions and used “Quicktime Events” to decide the course of the story. In Jurassic Park however you are merely using those mechanics to continue the story. You’re actions don’t determine the outcome of the game, they just allow you to get through it. So, if you miss a button and one of the characters dies, you start over. Really, any interaction with the game consists of looking around, doing small puzzles or completing Quicktime Events. It’s not a game this decade is used to. If this was made back when games like 1983′s Dragon’s Lair were still mind-blowing, we’d be getting our minds blown. Blown like a champ. I can’t really insult that effort though. It may not be a new concept but at least it breaks away from how generic modern games have become. I love old adventure games and they are so rare to see now. They’ve been replaced by cheap Hidden-object games that get pumped out by the dozen. Anyway, you might enjoy the game-play if you’re into the classics (or just the old and mediocre) but otherwise this may be to outdated a concept to fit into the Call of Duty mindset a lot of gamers are stuck in. I don’t mean that to be a dig at those games. They are fun and impressive as hell, I’m just saying their fans are for the most part, idiots. Heheh.
- Drag cursor across left tit
Audio/Visual: Like the gameplay, the graphics are an outdated style, and again this is by no means a bad thing. The smooth and polished look might not fly with people who are used to being able to count the hairs on Nathan Drake’s stubble. I for one do not need to see such things. The game looks just great and the animation isn’t half-bad either considering they probably had a 6th of the budget an Uncharted or Call of Duty game has. The voice acting actually stands out, being one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. A lot of clever one-liners and genuine emotion is brought up. While there isn’t exactly loads of character development, there is a lot more than were used to. I’ve been playing through Skyrim and Rage on Xbox 360, and while I adore the Elder Scrolls games and have been having a blast with Rage, they made me think about how nonexistent character development is in big-budget games. Jurassic Park: The Game may not be anywhere even close to how great Skyrim is but I don’t remember ever going “Awww, oh no, don’t let him die!” in my uncountable amount of hours playing. I guess it’s more about immersion and role-playing but I wish games would pull up some real emotion like I know they can and have.
Conclusion: Jurassic Park: The Game is not for most modern gamers. They will most likely be put off by the “Interactive Movie” style of game-play and the overly smooth graphics. While I’ve mostly been praising the game, I think a lot more could have been done with the resources they had. It seems like the production started out with a little too much ambition and the idea became pretty watered down. If the plan was to mimic Heavy Rain, it should have been a lot more like Heavy Rain. That being said it’s still nice to see games with older styles still being put out, even if they are getting pretty shitty reviews. TellTale Games still gets my vote and I hope to see more from them, games as well as more risks.
Pros: Well-written story that ties into into the original film and completes unfinished story arcs, Great voice acting, some intense action and escape sequences, lots of nods to scenes in the movie, new dinosaurs!
Cons: Repetitive game-play, not a lot of game-play, decisions don’t effect the story, Chapter 4 was a bit of a let-down, not a lot of replay value, just could have been much better over-all.
Next Life (PC) – Poorly-Worded Perdition
Every time I begin writing one of these I marvel at the silliness behind reviewing these games. I could have written a review of a game like Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Dead Island, which I do own but instead I slave away on these. Thankfully, it’s a lot of fun for me. I thought I’d mix up the reviewing process and try some slight changes. Perhaps you won’t notice them and perhaps you won’t read it all, either way I wrote it so…I’m satisfied.
Next life is an adventure/puzzle game published by the purveyors of a lost generation of gaming, The Adventure Company (this is somewhat meant to be facetious but I genuinely enjoy most of their games) in 2007. Aside from that I don’t really know anything more about the minds behind this game. I had heard about it through a forum post claiming it to contain themes similar to my favorite TV series, LOST. This was true but I can’t tell if it was entirely intentional, I mean there are some similarities but they are in rather vague things that could have easily been a coincidence. Anyway, this is the part of the review where I talk about the production of the game and those involved in the games creation, but since I don’t know anything else this time around let’s leap right into the middle of the review, new sections included, try to enjoy.
Plot : Next Life opens on our hip, twenty-something, Bohemian protagonist, Alex. We aren’t given any back story, but Alex is driving through the night and irresponsibly talking on his cell phone. He swerves to avoid a car and loses control, crashing. He wakes up on a gloomy uncharted island in a metal bunker and no memory of how he came to be there. This is where the game sort of falls apart because the moment I heard the characters speak I thought, “I am not going to enjoy this, am I?” You discover that the island houses several other people that don’t know how they came to be there, but they do remember being moments from death. So far, this sounds really interesting to me. I would watch a movie that started off this way. The conclusion of the mystery is so absurd it’s almost really funny, but without a doubt the funniest part is the dialogue. It’s a little sad though, because there are some themes the game fondles that are very titillating for my mind balls; Mysterious islands, quirky characters, dreams, science. I ‘m not very subtle am I? In addition to the LOST similarities there are some pretty coincidental Silent Hill 2 references. Mainly, that there is a promiscuous character named Maria with short blonde hair, a skirt and an article of leopard print clothing. The problem is that it just seems so poorly translated and awkward. Literally, a few mechanics polished and some professional voice talent and I would have had a vastly different opinion.
- Must…reach…small fire extinguisher…
Gameplay : I like to think I have a pretty generous arsenal of synonyms but none could do justice to how impressively, astoundingly, basterdly slow this game is. It plays as most 3rd person adventure games but stuck in tar. Clicking on Alex’s destination causes him to slowly turn around, adjust himself, take the smallest, slowest fucking steps possible and then stop. If he was walking over to an object to interact with it, he freezes in front of it, repositions himself, looks down, fiddles with it and looks back up. All in the slowest of motion. This is my..well, second biggest complaint. Another unforgivable offense to my patience and forgiveness is some of the seemingly intentional logical fallacies. By this I mean, the game will purposely make you think you’ve chosen the wrong option leading you to spend needless hours wandering around wondering why the fuck something so logical was shrugged off. Example: A recurring task involves attempting to gain entrance to an ancient bell tower. You pick up a stick to pry the door up (it closes like a blast door (down)). So you select the stick and drag it to the door. He takes out the stick and valiantly tries to pry it open. Finally, giving up he puts the stick back in his vest pocket (?) and exclaims, “That makes no sense.” So, at this point I figure, “well, I guess I should find something else to open the door.” I spend a fair amount of time retracing my steps and looking for anything I missed. After a time I end up back at the bell tower, staring at it. It’s mocking me. As an unconscious act of desperation I dragged the stick back to the door and to my surprise he slid the door up and pocketed the stick. Why would you not only show his inability to open the door but go as far as saying that the merely attempting it, “makes no sense,” if IT DID MAKES SENSE! I’m honestly surprised that I had the strength to complete such a tedious and frustrating game. If you manage to make it through this game without a walk-through or without snapping the disk in twain, than a big tip of the cap to you.
- Such a way with words.
Audio/Visual : I’m not picky about graphics. This game features some interesting characters and textures and I don’t think they look half bad. In fact the characters seemed to be where all the efforts where focused. The environments did their job and particle effects look silly. There are a lot of cut corners, i.e. fading to black whenever something that might have been difficult to animate is happening or Alex will stand in front of something so you can’t see him doing something. Visually I don’t have much of a problem, it meets my expectation for the genre. The audio is where things get very amusing. Like I said before, I’m pretty sure that English is not the games native tongue, nor the voice actors. Dialogue can be so broken and awkwardly phrased. Only one of the characters hails from the United States, an African american woman from New York who uses the phrase “chap” pretty liberally. Alex sounds like a tourist that has a decent grasp of English, saying things like “Oh, I would myself like to know,” and “A purgatory? probably there is not too much sun on his head.” There is also this odd phenomena in the subtitles; in the subtitles there is much cursing but in the voice acting there is little to none. Someone will say, “Damn you!” and the text will say, “Fuck you!” I don’t mean to make fun of the work these guys did but it’s just so unavoidably amusing.
- Yes…put off those knickers…
Conclusion: Next Life is a creative game as far as plot and so forth but it’s translation leaves it feeling broken and awkward. Like when you try to hold a normal conversation with someone who barely grasps your language, there’s a lot of fake smiling and head nodding but in the end you just want to get away as fast as you can. It’s easy enough to look at, at least for me and aside from a few stiff animations looks very interesting. It’s pretty tough to get through and I can’t say I would recommend it. At the same time I hope to see more games like this, because they feel very unique and creative despite the dying genre.
Pros: Lot’s of character and unintentionally funny lines. At one point Alex looks into a toilet bowl and says “It looks like this persons best years are over.” I get the impression that this was actually meant to be a joke but I found humor in how little sense that statement actually makes.
Cons: Painfully slow game-play, bad dialogue, frustrating mechanics and mini-games, story that becomes laughable in the end. Robots are involved.
A Short Narrative Concerning UFOs.
I’m not of exceedingly disturbed mind, this I know true. While I can be lead on mild flights of fancy; I always return safety to Terra Firma. Lately my minds axis seems to jostle precariously and it’s caused an alarming feeling of…well, conflict. For a while now, I have busied myself with reading. The subject? The unexplainable. I have toiled away much time; absorbed in sightings of unearthly craft and tales of horrendous examination by life forms unknown. I am a person grounded in reality, that is certain. If something can be proven with a wealth of evidence and explanation than I can accept it as the closest to the truth.
Take Christianity for example; millions of people, wholeheartedly believe in and put their lives in the hands of a bronze-age story book. In this case, the vast number of people that hold Christian doctrine as the unarguable, infallible guide to existence have no validity. There is not one shred of evidence, and never will be. Much like the case for extraterrestrial/interdimensional life , the facts can be skewed and people can spin a web of lies to misinform and discredit. The difference is that almost all supposed extraterrestrial experiences can be feasible. It’s actually very possible that we are not alone. It’s possible that other lifeforms study us, or experiment on us. If someone sees a flying disk in the sky, it can be explained. Either someone on earth has a lot of time and money and scientific expertise to develop an electromagnetic, gyroscopic engine of some kind or a more enlightened species rode by in one. Both are far-fetched but at least there is the slightest sliver of a possibility. Both the Christian Bible and the theory of extraterrestrials originated on Earth and because of mortal men but only one is scientifically possible. I don’t know if any of it is true, it could be a complete paranoid fantasy worked up by thousands of emotionally damaged individuals in all walks of life; military officers, authors, rednecks as far back as the 1800′s or so. It’s the possibility that keeps me up at night. I know our galaxy alone contains at least 200 billion stars and I know snakes flick their tongues about in order to smell and not to speak Hebrew.
I hope I’m not coming across as if I were trying to feign intellect or higher knowledge of the topic because really I’m just some asshole in an uncomfortable wooden chair, babbling about aliens at 2am. This is just the a writhing desire to put these ideas down, coming to fruition. The real reason we are here is to discuss an incident that I witnessed on August 28th, 2011 at 12am. It was probably nothing. The greater half of my mind knows it was nothing, but the other rebels and questions. I’m doing my best not to let the incident grow to paranoia, to irrationality. All I know is that I have no explanation, not very impressive as there are a lot of things I wouldn’t know, but allow me to recount the event as I experienced it. At around 12am, I was at my fathers house in Murrietta, CA. My father and brother had stepped outside to have a cigarette and being left alone in the room and filled with unexpelled energy I was pacing back and forth in the entrance area of the house. Eventually I received a phone call from my brother who was in reality 3 or so yards away from me. He sounded to be at a loss for words and merely said, “Uh…you should come out here, like fast.” Being right in front of the door I quickly stepped outside. My brother immediately pointed to the sky and said “Do you see that light?”, and indeed there was a bright white light in the distance which looked to me to be a planet or bright star. “It was moving.” he said excitedly. “When we came out here it was above the trees (to the right) and it slowly moved above that house (to the left)”. I squinted my eyes and tried to make sense of it’s shape. I noticed there was 2 or 3 smaller lights around it that would flash in no particular sequence. It was clearly too high to be a helicopter and too stationary to be a plane. It would gently move from side to side ever once in a while before slowly raising higher into the sky. It stayed for a while before gaining height once more. My father brought out a pair of binoculars and we took turns looking through them. Through the binoculars we realized the shape was closer to triangular with three lights on each point. I didn’t have a camera although I did attempt to take a picture with my mobile phone which barely showed up because of how old my phone is and how distant the object was. At least it’s something though.
We marveled at the lights for a while swapping theories when to the far left, above the street I noticed two sets of lights gliding past the street and stopping above a streetlight (they were very far away this is just my perspective). They were both flashing like strobe lights, alternating orange, green and red. They slowly met at the top of the streetlight before one moved away to the left behind some houses. I pointed to them and asked my father if that was odd. My father took a quick glance at them and said “Nah, those are airplanes.” He did a double take, “Wait…”. The flashing light to the right stayed there for several hours as well as the bright triangle. We stayed outside until almost 2am watching the lights, eventually around five of the flashing ones showed up, at first in a perfect triangle until the others broke the formation. A little later there was three that formed a perfectly symmetrical line. It was at this point I started to doubt myself. There had to be an explanation for this. We went back inside and I tried not to dwell on it. We started to get tired and there had been no movement in the sky for a while when my brother excitedly pointed to the sky and said “did you see that? A bright light made a check-mark shape into the sky!” I stared to no avail until 10 minutes later when I witnessed two balls of light making a check-mark shaped pattern in the sky. Shooting stars can’t change direction like that. My heart was beating excitedly. I replayed the moment in my head over and over again. Everyone eventually went to bed upstairs and I stayed downstairs to watch TV. A commodity I don’t have at home. I soon became paranoid and couldn’t bring myself to go upstairs. I walked to the stairs and looked up at the darkness above and felt completely vulnerable. I left the lights and TV on and curled up on the couch.
I’ve decided that retaining my healthy skepticism is important, and I shouldn’t let myself jump to wild conclusions. I maintain my interest in the subject but remaining skeptical is the only logical conclusion. Take what you will from my vague little story, but keep an open mind.
mandragonx
